railing were out. Cars swooshed and splashed down 301. No one walked the rainy night, not even a floating monk.
Digger had said he was going to get a cot, but I remembered he had a crevice or a stone bench in Bayfront Park. He might be in the washroom thirty feet away. I couldn’t take another conversation with Digger, probably couldn’t take one with anyone else.
I held my cup over the railing into the rain, caught enough to brush my teeth and rinse and spit into the night.
I love the rain. I love heavy rain that isolates, keeps people away, sets up a wall if not of silence at least of steadiness. The sound of rain always helps me to sleep. I went back in, locked the door, moved to my room, got undressed, put on fresh underwear, and popped a tape into the VCR cutting off CNN showing people clinging to the tops of trees in a flood somewhere in Africa.
The movie came on. I’d picked it up for three dollars on the third floor of the Main Street Book Store. It was A Stolen Life with Bette Davis. Made a good double feature with Dead Ringer, both about Davis playing a twin who takes the place of her evil sister. It wasn’t Crawford in Rain but it would do. The problem was that the film, while in English, had subtitles in Spanish. I ignored the subtitles and watched. Dane Clark was an artist saying something to the good Bette Davis. I dozed to the sound of rain and woke up to see two Bette Davises on a small boat in a storm. The rain continued to tell me to sleep. I did.
8
The rain had stopped. That I knew before I opened my eyes in the morning. I also knew I hadn’t turned off the VCR. The sound of static crackled like burning paper. When I opened my eyes, I found a face looking down into mine. I shot up and cracked foreheads with Marvin Uliaks.
“Oww,” he groaned, putting his hand on his forehead and stepping back.
I had a sudden headache from the impact, but no permanent damage.
Was Bubbles Dreemer standing in line in my office to take another crack at me?
“How did you get in?” I asked.
Marvin looked at his hand for signs of blood. There were none.
“Window,” he said. “Lock doesn’t work.”
“How long were you standing there?” I asked, sitting up and holding my head in both hands.
“Awhile,” he said. “I didn’t want to wake you. You find Vera Lynn yet?”
“I told you I’d let you know, Marvin,” I said with irritation.
“I just thought…” he started. “You need more money?”
“No,” I said. “I do have a lead.”
“A lead?”
“Some information on how I might find her, where she might be. Marvin, I don’t think she wants to be found.”
“I have to talk to her,” he said, playing with his hands. It looked as if he were washing them in imaginary water.
“Okay,” I said. “But the deal is clear. I find her. Tell her you want to talk to her and she does what she wants to do. If she has a message, I’ll bring it.”
“I have to talk to Vera Lynn,” he said. “Myself. I have to. I have to give her something. Something she needs.”
“What?”
He shook his head “no” and reached into his pockets pulling out money.
“Here,” he said. “Use it. Find her. Tell her.”
He dropped money on the cot. I reached up and stopped him by grabbing his wrists.
“No more, Marvin,” I said. “I have enough. I’ll use this and that’s it.”
“That’s it,” Marvin repeated, stuffing money back into his pockets. “Cross my heart.” Which he did. “Hope to die.” Which he did not.
“Now if you’d just go to work or wherever you might be going this morning, I’ll get up and get to work finding Vera Lynn.”
“I’m going. Beauty shop cleanup,” he said. “Then… I forget. I’ll remember. Sometimes I remember five years ago, twenty-five years ago better than yesterday.”
“I do the same,” I said.
“You do?”
“I thought maybe I was getting a little crazy. I know I’m not smart but I never thought I was crazy.”
“You’re not. I’ll get back to you.”
He left. This time through the front door. I gathered the bills he had dumped on my bed. I flattened out the crumpled ones and sorted them. He had dropped almost three hundred dollars. I pocketed them, checked the clock. It was a few minutes after six.
I put on my shorts and a Sarasota French Film Festival T-shirt, grabbed my helmet, and wheeled my bike out the doors and bumped it gently down the stairwell.
I was starting to get on the bike when Dave stepped out of the back door of the DQ, a broom in his hand. He looked more prepared for a day fighting marlins than dishing out shakes and burgers.
“Found something for you on the order counter this morning. Addressed to you,” he said.
He leaned the broom against the white wall, went back into the DQ, and emerged with a box. The box was gray and wet. “ FONESCA ” was printed on the box in all black capital letters.
I opened the soggy package and found a thick manuscript. The top page was clearly typed, Whispering Love, a novel by Conrad Lonsberg. There was a clear signature. The date typed at the bottom was May 12, 1990. I lifted the soggy page while Dave stood over my shoulder.
The next pages and all that followed were soaked, the words on them running and undecipherable. The manuscript was ruined.
“She has imagination,” I said. “Burning, shredding, soaking.”
“The possibilities aren’t endless,” Dave said.
“But there may be enough.”
“What’s going on?” he said.
I told him.
“People,” he said.
“People,” I agreed, tucking the soggy box under my arm.
“I prefer fish and the Gulf waters,” he said.
I wasn’t much for fish or the Gulf waters, but I knew what he meant.
“You think about that trip,” said Dave. “We could probably rig a VCR. When I run out of things to do, I could come down to the cabin and watch you looking the way you look now.”
“Haven’t had time to think about it more,” I said. “I’ll get back to you but don’t count on me.”
“I count only on David,” he said.
After I’d brought the useless manuscript to my office and placed it on my desk, I went back to my bike and pedaled the few blocks to the Y.M.C.A., my single extravagance.
I went through the cycle of machines with the others who hurried through so they could shower, put on their suits, and be at their shops or desks or in uniform and possibly even have something to eat before they did what they had to do. It was less crowded today than usual. That’s the way it was on Saturdays. That’s the way I liked it. I liked swimming alone in the pool, slow, side stroke, on my back, a crawl once in a while, and then a hot shower and bike ride back.
No matter how much I worked out, I didn’t seem to look any different, to gain or lose weight. Lew Fonesca’s body was intact and healthy. It was his mind that needed a workout. That was the workout I didn’t like. Working out was a meditation the way Sunday services used to be for me when I was a kid going to church. No thought. None expected or seen. It was the solitude not the lure of taut muscle or the healthy aerobic heartbeat that drew
